Flapping Your Broken Wings

Here’s the lesson I keep relearning: We don’t control what other people think of us. Even if they are really, really wrong. Even if what they think of us is hurtful to them. Even if I fully accept another person’s shortcomings and difficulties – that’s no guarantee they will accept mine.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t accept other people…it just means everyone has their limits.

Love openly. Err on the side of kindness. It really fucking hurts to trust. I know. But trust anyway. Stay in touch with loved ones. Pay attention. STOP WORRYING. It really is true that within the margin of error and certain parameters, everything really does turn out ok. But don’t forget those who dwell outside of those parameters for whom things do not turn out ok. When taking risks, consider them, as well as yourself. Don’t confuse luck for skill. Don’t mistake circumstance for predestiny. Give more credit than you accept. Worry is negative goal setting. DON’T GET INVOLVED IN RELATIONSHIPS UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND FULLY WHAT YOU ARE GETTING YOURSELF INTO. It’s not selfish to conserve your own energy, provided you don’t make promises you can’t keep while preserving that energy. Be nice to your mama.

Dude. That’s good advice.

Good energy (ar ar. SO sorry about that! I didn’t even realize that was there until I proofread, and I just can’t bear to remove it.) (By the way, The Tao of C told a pun-joke today that went like: If you don’t pet this kitty, it will be a cat-astrophe! Like Apocalypse Meow!” hahaha!) in the room today as I stood with representatives from a broad coalition of environmental, economic, and social justice groups in objection to the changes the Austin City Council proposes to make to Austin Energy. Namely, putting control of our public utility, as well as its assets, in the hands of an unelected board. In other words, transferring the LITERAL power out of the hands of the people. I was honored to stand among such a dedicated and committed group of people. I think the next few months are going to be very interesting in my life. I have a lot to learn.

City Council meeting this Thursday should be interesting. It’s estimated that the issue will come before the council between 5 and 7 PM, but that time is not set in stone. Childcare and food will be provided, for those who wish to join us (I say us, but I might have to be late) in opposing this change vocally and in numbers.

Clean Energy For Austin

On the way to that press conference, I ran into a client of the program I once ran. We stopped to smell flowers, and I convinced her to come to the press conference and hold a sign.

PJ Sniffing flowers.

Got my new glasses.

Please ignore my messy hair!

Got some hair dye. Had a good dinner…

Peanut tofu over a bed of sauteed collard greens

I’m writing perfect poetry
In my mind and disappears like smoke

and Tiny bursting dynamites of hope.

Tomorrow is jury duty and hair dying. ❤

***

I want you to think about this:

Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton ordered the school — with a student population of 1,776 — on “lock down,” kicking off the first “drug sweep” in the school’s four-year history. According to Hamilton, “lock down” is a state in which, “everybody is locked in the room they are in, and nobody leaves — nobody leaves the school, nobody comes into the school.”

“Everybody is locked in, and then they bring the dogs in, and they are teamed with an administrator and go in and out of classrooms. They go to a classroom and they have the kids come out and line up against a wall. The dog goes in and they close the door behind, and then the dog does its thing, and if it gets a hit, it sits on a bag and won’t move.”

While such “drug sweeps” have become a routine matter in many of the nation’s schools, along with the use of metal detectors and zero-tolerance policies, one feature of this raid was unusual. According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four “law enforcement agencies” took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

It is the involvement of CCA — the nation’s largest private, for-profit prison corporation — that causes this high school “drug sweep” to stand out as unusual; CCA is not, despite CGPD’s evident opinion to the contrary, a law enforcement agency.

“To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the ‘schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen,” said Caroline Isaacs, program director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker social justice organization that advocates for criminal justice reform.

This protest comes on the heels of TWAC, a weeklong gathering of almost 100 female and transgender activists to share skills and campaign information, and organize opposition to the prison-industrial complex. Prisons and immigrant detention centers, GEO’s primary investments, target poor people, people of color, and transgender individuals. As female and transgender organizers, we are more vulnerable to violence within these institutions. GEO has a clear record of human rights abuses within its facilities. https://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/twac-storms-prison-industry-giant-geo-group-hq-in-boca-raton/

A Tar Sands Blockader disrupted the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio this afternoon during the PGA golf tournament. Douglas Fahlbusch was a standard bearer for the event and used the opportunity to bring attention toManchester, a low income, predominately Latin@ community in Houston’s toxic East End where Valero operates a refinery that consistently violates EPA and TCEQ (Texas Commission for Environmental Quality) laws and regulations.

Once the tournament reached the 18th hole, Doug changed the sign, ordinarily used to display the players’ names and scores, to read “TAR SANDS SPILL. VALERO KILLS. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” He refused to leave the green and was dragged the entire way off the premises by police.

“Business as usual is over, between the BP spill, the current Arkansas spill, and daily life in Manchester,” Fahlbusch said. “Why won’t Valero tell the Manchester people what it is they are breathing every day?” http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/20th-action/

Using a bike-lock Zorn has attached her neck directly to a massive earth-mover, known as an excavator, which has brought construction of Keystone XL to a stop. Zorn is the second Oklahoma grandmother this year risking arrest to stop construction of the pipeline, and her protest is the third in a series of ongoing civil disobedience actions led by the Oklahoma-based coalition of organizations, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance. http://gptarsandsresistance.org/2013/04/09/3rd-action/

Which explains the praise for the pipeline organizers in this article (complete with throwdown in comments):

The movement to stop the Keystone XL pipeline has gone far beyond what anybody at TransCanada ever could have envisioned when it was first proposed. At Platts’ The Barrel talk at the recent AFPM meeting in San Antonio, a panel of experts all had different views on whether the line would be approved or rejected in the coming months. Ask 10 people in the oil business and you’ll get 10 opinions. (Given the recent ExxonMobil spill in Arkansas, those 10 opinions today might be different than they would have been a week ago.)

But if the protesters lose, and Keystone XL gets an Obama administration OK, it certainly isn’t for lack of trying or organization. They’re highly organized, and they know exactly what they’re doing. http://blogs.platts.com/2013/04/07/golf-protest/